13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970

Ricochet ^ | 4/21/2017 | Jon Gabriel

[freedumb2003]

Saturday is Earth Day — an annual event first launched on April 22, 1970. The inaugural festivities (organized in part by then hippie and now convicted murderer Ira Einhorn) predicted death, destruction and disease unless we did exactly as progressives commanded.

Sound familiar? Behold the coming apocalypse, as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970:

1. “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald
2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner
3. “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” — New York Times editorial
4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich
5. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born… [By 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich
6. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day
7. “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter
8. “In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” — Life magazine
9. “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
10. “Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich
11. “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
12. “[One] theory assumes that the earth’s cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun’s heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.” — Newsweek magazine
13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt

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A version of this article was posted in 2014.

[freedumb2003]

Gotta watch out for that Global Cooling!

You know, because, SCIENCE!

[JBW1949]

Where are these “experts” today????

[dp0622]

Yeah 13 is really going in the wrong direction if you’re algore. :)

Hysterical predictions.

I wonder if anyone took it seriously and became a survivalist and sold everything and moved into an abandoned silo :)

[dp0622]

If they did it at 35, they’d be 82 now and holding strong :)

[Gay State Conservative]

One thing that wasn't predicted,but surprised nobody when it happened,was that I would be murdered and left in a trunk for months by the founder of "Earth Day",Ira Einhorn.

[samtheman]

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt

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I particularly love this one.

[PoloSec]

In the year 2017 on Jan 20th to be exact, all around the free world liberal heads will explode marking the beginning of a Zombie Apocalypse.

[BipolarBob]

I wonder if anyone took it seriously and became a survivalist and sold everything and moved into an abandoned silo :)

And just what is wrong with becoming a survivalist and selling everything I owned and moving into an abandoned silo?

[Enchante]

I came of age in the ‘70s and so grew up with all the apocalyptic rantings. Took them too seriously until I learned better. Ofc the Ecotards will say their hysterical warnings led to policy changes that averted the worst for a while.... but that claim falls apart if we look at any details.

[seowulf]

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”

This might have come true if socialism had been allowed to progress unchecked.

As it is, there is Venezuela.

[Michael.SF.]

And that was settled science in 1970, 97% all agreed

[PGR88]

Paul Ehrlich’s predictions and statements are consistently idiotic.

He a top grand wizard of the pagan cult religion that is environmentalism.

[rockrr]

Yea, I (sorta) remember celebrating the first green day by smoking weed. I don’t think that it was what our teachers had in mind - except perhaps Mr. Clarke ;’}

[dp0622]

Er, nothing!

[Maine Mariner]

Some have passed away; others still secure in their tenured faculty positions.

[Enchante]

Well.... one of the worst of those eco-hysterics has just served 8 years as Obama’s chief “science advisor” and is now cozily back in academe:

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/john-holdren

[Delta 21]

They'll never learn.

[JBW1949]

Yeah, I looked them up...One thing though...ALL are surprisingly silent today about their predictions...I wonder why????

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm

[SWAMP-C1PHER]

I predict that I’m going to burn a copy of silent spring that I purchased yesterday. Chances if it coming true: 100%. Grabs matches.